Archer & Armstrong Comic Book Optioned

‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ writer Terry Rossio is also on board for the adaptation of the comic book.

Valiant Entertainment, the independent comic publisher behind Harbinger, Bloodshot and X-O Manowar, is continuing its move into movie production. Heat Vision has learned that the big screen version of action-comedy comic book Archer & Armstrong has found its writer and director.

The adaptation is quickly moving forward with Zombieland‘s Ruben Fleischer on board to direct, according to sources close to the project. Terry Rossio is attached as a writer. Rossio is known for work on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and was recently named the leader of Legendary’s MonsterVerse writers room. Joining Fleischer as producers on the project are Jason Brown, The Mummy‘s Sean Daniel and Valiant CEO and CCO Dinesh Shamdasani.

The project is being developed in-house before being shopped to studios.

Archer & Armstrong first appeared in a series of the same name in 1992, created by former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, Wolverine: Weapon X writer/artist Barry Windsor-Smith and fan-favorite creator Bob Layton. The series centers around the unlikely friendship between Armstrong, an immortal warrior who has become a drunken self-styled philosopher throughout the centuries, and Archer, a teenage prodigy who has been trained since childhood to murder him.

News of Rossio and Fleischer’s involvement in the project, which is separate from the five-picture deal Valiant has with Sony, follows the announcement of Dave Wilson — creative partner of Deadpool director Tim Miller — as director of the company’s Bloodshot at Sony, working from a screenplay by Arrival‘s Eric Heisserer.

Additionally, Valiant is developing another buddy comedy project, Quantum & Woody, for television with Joe and Anthony Russo as executive producers. (Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, currently working on Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, will script the pilot.)